How To Paint a Night Scene Using the Infinite Painter Android App

This is a lesson on painting a night scene using the Android app, Infinite Painter. This lesson covers digital techniques, but will also emphasize traditional painting principles.

With the rise in popularity of computer tablets comes the need for digital painting apps. On regular PCs there are some very complex programs such as Painter 12, ArtRage, and SketchBook Pro and many more, but what about computer tablets? Well, the ipad was quite a few high end painting apps such as Inspire Pro, Procreate, and ArtRage. Android is a little behind in quality painting apps, but is starting to catch up. I have Android tablets (they are more affordable for me) so that is my focus. I have found several high end android apps such as Infinite Painter, Infinite Design, SketchBook Pro, Artflow, Serious Paint, Clover Paint and several more. I will cover these apps in future lessons. In this lesson I will show how to paint a night scene using Infinite Painter on my Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet.

Night Scene Step 1

Infinite Painter: Current Interface

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Brushes Menu

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Color Picker Menu

Ellie Taylor Artist

Infinite Painter: Current Interface

This is the current interface for Infinite Painter: Galaxy Note. The version for the Galaxy varies from the regular version in that you can set the s pen to be separate from a finger touch. You can make the s pen be the brushes and your finger touch be the blending brush.

One of the reasons I like this app is because the developer, Sean Brakefield, is constantly improving the app. Since I first purchased it, Infinite Painter has gone through several big updates and has just gotten better and better.

A tap on the bottom right hand button brings up the brushes menu and a tap on the bottom left hand button brings up the color picker menu. The button with the color swirls is the blending brush. When you touch this button, it will blend the colors using the brush that is currently selected. The app has a help menu that explains all the functions in depth or you can ask the developer. He is very good to respond to questions or requests.

Infinite Painter

Android Painting App

Night Scene Step 2

Painting the Night Sky

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Blending the Night Sky

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Painting the Night Sky

When painting the night sky don't just make it black. Use dark blues, greens, purples, and reds. This will make the sky a richer darker color than just using plain black. There are many artists who say that you should never use black when painting. However, it's okay to use black, just don't use it alone. Adding another color to black will create a richness and will create depth to it. In this step I added several swatches of color using the bristle brush and blended them together to create a deep purplish blue color. When I blended the sky, I used an x stroke. This also works well in traditional painting and will give you a smooth blended sky.

Night Scene Step 3

Brush Settings

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New Layer

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Adding the Stars to the Sky

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Adding the Stars to the Sky

Toothbrush Trick

In this step I added a new layer for the stars. I selected a very light yellow for the star color. Sometimes a pure white can make a painting too chalky looking. A trick that I use when traditionally painting is to take a toothbrush, dip it in a very watery acrylic paint and flick it on the canvas. This technique works great for stars, snow, gravel, and water drops. Infinite Painter has a toothbrush in its brush menu and you can customize its settings. This brush works great for stars and it is also pressure sensitive so that you can make the stars brighter or dimmer.

Night Scene Step 4

Distant Hills

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Adding the Flatlands

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Adding the Distant Hills and Flatlands

For this step, I added a new layer and painted in the distant mountains with the oil brush. To show distance, I picked a light bluish purple. Then I added the flatlands at the foot of the mountains with a darker color. I used variations of light and dark to give indications of geographical features and blended them together. When a person views a landscape from a far off distance, geographical features are usually not distinct. Therefore it is important to get this look in your paintings in order to achieve a three dimensional look.

Night Scene Step 5

Foreground Cliff

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Foreground Cliff

On another layer, I painted the foreground cliff with the bristle brush. Foreground simply means the layer closest to the viewer. A well composed foreground will really sell the three dimensional look of your painting. Objects up close to a viewer in real life are more detailed and intense in color so I picked a dark blue color for the cliff.

Night Scene Step 6

Using the Circular Guide

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Painting the Moon

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Painting the Moon

One of the features that I really like about Infinite Painter is the guides. It's nice to see a feature like that in an android app. In this step, I opened the guides menu and chose the circular guide. It has several features including resize and move. I resized the guide to the size I wanted for the moon and moved it into the sky. Then I chose the bristle brush, picked a light yellow color, and painted around the guide. It made a perfect moon.

Night Scene Step 7

Adding Highlights to the Hills

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Adding Highlights to the Flatlands

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Adding Highlights to the Hills and the Flatlands

Infinite Painter has a feature that uploads custom made brushes for everyone to use. These brushes can be found in the brushes menu under the online tab and anyone can upload one. To add the highlights on the distant hills and flatlands, I used one of these online brushes. These are not named, but you can see what the stroke looks like in the brush preview. I chose a grainy brush to give an indication of canyons in the hills and rough terrain in the flatlands. Then I blended in the highlights.

Night Scene Step 8

Putting in the Road

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Putting in the Road

I wanted to add another feature to give this painting depth, so I added a road. In this step, I used the eraser to make the road, by erasing the top layer in the shape of the road and letting the bottom layer show through. Then I softened the edges to blend the road into the background. I also added some faint highlights to the cliff in the foreground.

Night Scene Step 9

Highlighting the Foreground Cliff

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Highlighting the Foreground Cliff

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Highlighting the Foreground Cliff

I found that the chalk brush worked great for adding the final highlights on the foreground cliff. To finalize the shape of the cliff rocks, I blended the highlights on the edges of the rocks. If you need to reshape the rocks, add more of the dark color and blend it in to the highlight edges.

Night Scene Step 10

Adding the Main Subject

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Adding the Main Subject

At this stage, the picture can be completed with whatever you wish to put in it. You could put animals, people, objects, or whatever you can think of. For this lesson, I decided to add an old dead tree. I went to the website www.morguefile.com and found a good tree reference to use. This website offers royalty free photos to use for painting references. Pixabay is another good website for royalty free images. Its address is www.pixabay.com.

I picked a greyish color for the tree and painted in the tree and branches with the bristle brush. I also added a small bush in the corner as an eyestopper. An eyestopper is an object that you put on the edges of your painting to keep the viewer's eye engaged with your canvas. You want your painting to be interesting and hold your audience's attention.

Night Scene Last Steps

Final Details

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Final Details

To finish this painting, I added the final highlights on the tree and the twiggy bush using the chalk brush. I added grass between and around the rocks on the cliff and a few more twiggy bushes. I used the pencil options in the brush menu and light and dark colors to make the grass show up better. I also added some detail on the moon to make it look realistic by using the oil brush and blending it.

Another Book about Painting Night Scenes

Printing

Now we have a work of art, but can we print it? This painting came out to be 720 x 720 pixels at 96 ppi. Usually to make good prints you want at least 300 ppi, but I just found a company that can print and enlarge these paintings. It is called Instacanvas and is associated with Instagram. Your image needs to be square and at least 612 x 612 pixels at 72 dpi. They can make canvas prints up to 20 x 20 inches. They have a print on demand program where you can sell your images too. Right now you have to be a member of Instagram and your images must come from there.